Opinion: Double Segregation (Style Weekly)
Julian Hayter, assistant professor of Leadership Studies, opines on education, poverty and segregation in the city of Richmond on the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
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This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Chief Justice Earl Warren's court unanimously overturned the legal justification for Jim Crow segregation. The high court argued that segregation in public schools was unlawful and that "in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place." A mere two years later, 19 Southern senators and 77 representatives signed a manifesto, devised by Virginia's Harry F. Byrd, to "use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision." This resistance became an integral part of Brown's legacy.